by Gary Pines

Mental barriers to doing what we must to bring in business hamper us far more than do lack of skill or time.  These mental habits are invisible parasites that suck away our vigor, making it hard to perform.   They attack us in many circumstances:

•  I am about to make a phone call to someone I have not spoken to in six months. I go to the phone. I get ready to pick up the receiver … and then I hesitate as worries race through my mind.  She won’t remember me.  She won’t want to talk with me.  Why haven’t I called her sooner? I have no great idea to give her.  She probably won’t be there anyway.  I just remembered that I have to finish working on a project.  The phone call doesn’t get made.
• I attend an association meeting intending to meet prospective clients.  The room is full of people chatting in small groups.  Again, doubts undermine my determination:  These people aren’t interested in me.  They will think that I am just trying to sell them something.  This will never work.  My thoughts are interrupted by a former colleague, and I spend the rest of the event with him.
• During a three-hour flight my seat mate turns on her computer, the desktop has the logo of a company I have wanted to have as a client for years.  I think briefly of starting a conversation, but say to myself:  She’s going to think I’m weird.  This is such a long shot, it’s not worth it.  At the end of the flight, we go our separate ways without have shared a word.

There are many situations where we doubt our Rain Making intentions and hesitate; whether it be asking for a catching-up meeting, inviting someone to an event, asking personal questions about their kids and vacations,  or asking for the business.

So … why do we hesitate?  Why do we hear two voices in our head arguing with each other, the positive voice saying “Do it’” the negative one giving all the reasons not to. The simple answer to why we hesitate is … FEAR.  We all FEAR something bad will happen.  And if something bad happens, we will be in some kind of trouble.

Trouble can be as easily understood by using FEAR as an acronym:
 
 F … I don’t want Failure
 E … I don’t want Embarrassment
 A … And
 R … I don’t want Rejection

Failure, Embarrassment And Rejection are a real problem if they interfere with your professional work.

But, Failure, Embarrassment And Rejection are a natural part of being a successful Rainmaker.  You will not be successful as a Rainmaker unless you bust through FEAR.So … if you can break through the barrier of FEAR when developing business … and accept (and even celebrate) failures, embarrassments and rejections … then your chances of new business success go up.  But it takes practice.

Here are some things you can do:

• Identify situations where FEAR takes over.  Some people fear making phone calls, some mixing in a crowd of people they don’t know, and still others something else.  Articulate to yourself clearly what situations bring out the negative voice of the parasite, FEAR.
• Recognize and name it when FEAR inserts itself.  Now that you understand what brings out FEAR, when it comes, stop for a moment and acknowledge what is happening:  “This is irrational fear speaking.  It doesn’t always speak the truth.  Accepting its words as if they were true will set back my career.”
• Do a logical assessment of the risk you face and use that to dispel FEAR.  Listen to the specific words of the little voice and assess their truthfulness.  If the voice says, She doesn’t want to talk with me, you might conclude We always got along well.  There is no reason to believe it is otherwise now.
• Seek out situations where you can overcome FEAR.  Push yourself to test the truthfulness of FEAR in a situation where logic tells you that the little voice is not speaking the truth.  Once you have completed the action assess again whether FEAR was rationally justified.
• Once you have succeeded in a slightly fearful situation, up the ante by seeking out situations which would cause greater FEAR.  Try again it a more fearful situation. And again assess the truthfulness.
• Repeat the process.  Eventually, you will learn to manage FEAR instead of it managing you.

How unfortunate it would be if you let irrational FEAR stand in the way to your success.  Most of us have helped a child face and overcome unnecessary fear that stood in the way of his or her success.  We did it using a process similar to the one described here.  FEAR is not restricted to any age.  At any age it is best to face it, recognize it for what it is, an irrational, loudmouth bogeyman, who will not stand up to the light.

My firm is fourteen years old this month. This anniversary is an appropriate time to reflect on one of the people who helped me get it going. When I started, I had one client, a large technology consulting firm. To gather information needed for my work, I interviewed a number of their senior partners, and one of them was Charlie. At the end of the interview, he asked me what kind of work I did. I told him, and he asked if I could help with a problem which he described. I said I could, and he signed up for a project on the spot. My spirits soared, I so needed the work, only to crash two weeks later when I got a call to say that Charlie had quit, so the project was over. I had met the man once in my life for an hour, and he had never seen the results of my work and was in some kind of career turmoil. I wrote off the whole thing to bad luck and thought no more about it.

Three months later, I sat at my desk, sick with the realization that the two small projects I was working on were coming to an end, and, having no leads, I had little prospect of starting any new ones. Looking at my contact list, I knew that I had worked it too hard and couldn’t call these people again, because it might damage the relationship rather than generate leads. To not call anyone was to admit failure, so I asked myself who else was worth a try. Among the seven or eight names on this grasping-at-straws list was Charlie.

I tracked him down through his former secretary, called him and left him a message. I can still remember the message from him I found in my voice mail the next day. In it he said, “I’m so glad you called; I wanted to talk with you and didn’t know how to reach you.” That call resulted in the biggest client my little firm had for its first three years. That client was the difference between success and failure. And, I could so easily have never made that call!

I learned several important lessons from Charlie and this experience:

¨ It’s always better to be talking with someone out in the marketplace than with no one. If you are talking with someone, something good may happen, but if you talk to no one, you are almost assured of failure. It’s easy to come up with reasons why it isn’t worth calling someone—you can eliminate your entire contact list that way—but if you don’t call a person, you are unlikely to get his business. Call discipline is essential.

Professionals sometimes ask me if it is best to send a prospective client an email before calling her, especially if it is someone you don’t know well. They are usually looking for affirmation. I respond with this story:

Many years ago, I was taught how to make cold-call appointments with senior executives by Bruce McNaughton, a brilliant rainmaker who could get a meeting with anyone. We were to send letters (no email in those days) to people we wanted to meet, and he would come in a week later to show us how to follow up with a call to the execs’ assistants. Something went wrong and the letters weren’t sent. When I told Bruce this, he asked for the phone number of the first person on the list of those who should have received a letter. He picked up the phone and called the man’s assistant. “My name is Bruce McNaughton,” he said. “Has Mr. Smith received the letter I sent?” Of course, the assistant said he hadn’t. “Well, never mind,” said Bruce. “It said this . . .” He proceeded to describe what we were looking for, was passed on to the Chief Financial Officer and got us a meeting. The letter hadn’t been necessary, but Bruce knew that sending one would make me more comfortable with calling.

So, yes. Send an email, if it makes calling easier for you, but realize that you are doing it as much for your own comfort as you are for the executive you send it to. And what if your emails don’t get sent, call anyway.

Lindsy, a valuation consultant I am coaching, just generated a lead for new business, the first one she has ever turned up outside of the clients she is consulting to. It’s not for anything big, but it’s an important event for Lindsay. Without a lead, there can be no sale. Having a good lead flow gives you added control of your destiny at professional service firms.

Meet the right people. Stay in front of them by being helpful. Remind them of what you do in appropriate ways. And leads will follow. This is the simple logic that underlies what rainmakers do.

But is there a way, aspiring rainmakers like Lindsay always ask, to make those leads come along a little more quickly? It’s a fair question. We don’t find it so terrible to be asked to help people, especially when it’s people we like. We don’t expect an immediate return on our giving and realize that we will often give without ever getting something back. That’s okay. But we need to get something back some of the time from some of the people we help, if our firm is to make a profit and we are to move our careers along. That’s not being mercenary; it’s just being practical.

There are techniques for generating leads more quickly, and we will address them from time to time in this blog. Here is the one Lindsay used, which is perhaps the simplest of all:

To become a rainmaker you must develop relationships with clients, prospective clients and connectors, the term we use for people in other organizations who sell to the same people we do. Call discipline, the regular outreach by phone (and by emails, too, of course, but that’s a subject for another day), to our clients and connectors is a required part of the rainmaking process. These calls should largely be about the other person. How are you doing? What are you working on? What would help you? At some point in the conversation, the good ones, the ones you want to work with, will ask how things are going with you. This may be the only point in the conversation when you have an opportunity to talk about yourself and your firm. You had best spend this coin wisely.

It’s best to assume that in asking this question the contact really wants to know how you are doing. . . but not too much. And we will give her what she wants. Clearly, it shouldn’t be a blatant advertisement or a heavy sales pitch. That would be distasteful and unproductive. But answers like “Great,” or “We just put an addition on the house” won’t buy you much, either.

Instead, before you make the call mentally prepare a short statement describing something about the work you are doing that might stimulate the client’s thinking about how she or someone she knows might use you. “For the past year I’ve been working mostly on acquisitions. They’re fast paced and a lot of fun.” Keep it short. “We are putting some new ideas about vertical transportation in place, and it’s exciting to see them working so well.” “For several clients we are finding ways to manage healthcare costs while still providing the employees with reasonable coverage. Everybody; management, the employees and the providers; needs to do their part to make these approaches work. I’ve been brokering the different constituents and it’s very rewarding.”

Lindsay said, “I’m spending all my time placing a value on a pharmanceutical company’s unused patents. It’s like a treasure hunt, so I’m having a blast!” The former client she was talking to referred her to a friend who was selling his business and needed help valueing his patents.

Way to go, Lindsay!

It happened again! For the third time in so many weeks someone has told me that she is so loaded with work that she is reluctant to call former clients to keep the relationship warm. She fears that they will ask her to take on an assignment that she will have to decline for want of time. This fear is a sure sign of a peak economy.

It wasn’t long ago we were all hoping that someone would ask us for help. Short of work, we swore we would stay in touch with former clients, not letting the relationship go cold again. How quickly the world changes! How quickly we forget!

A glut of anything reduces its value, as any economist will tell you. Leads simply aren’t as precious as they once were, causing us to lose interest in the call and meeting routines and other lead generation efforts.. How quickly we forget that the calls and meetings we have today aren’t so likely to surface immediate requests for our services. Rather, they maintain relationships with those who may seek our services six months or a year from now, or perhaps in the more distant future. And who knows what the economy will be like then?

A downturn will come as surely as the sun sets in the evening. When it does, the clients who still have work to give out will give most of it to the professionals with whom they have a warm relationship. And it’s hard to have a relationship with someone you never talk to.

Rainmakers know this and make their calls and have their meetings in good times and in bad. One rainmaker I know had all the cases his twenty-person practice was working on cancel over the two weeks that followed September 11, 2001. By the first of November, he had his entire staff redeployed on new assignments for these same clients. There aren’t many professionals who could do that. Because he did it, he didn’t have to lay off any staff in the recession that followed. His team sailed through the downturn which put some firms out of business and resulted in layoffs and reduced bonuses at most. With a full team, he could grow faster than competitors during the following recovery and has reaped huge rewards. Without deep client relationships, he couldn’t have pulled this off.

More calls, anyone?

Last week my contact management software reminded me to call Lois. She is the logical point of contact at a firm where I would like to do business. I have known Lois for five years and her boss for six. Over those years I have made 25 calls to one or the other of them, and exactly five have been returned. The last time I spoke with Lois, she informed me that they were working with a competitor. That was almost three years ago. Since then all efforts to contact Lois and her boss by phone have gone into a void. A few e-mails lobbed in for variety have also received no response.

What should I do? What would you do?

The answer, of course, depends on the reason my calls have gone unreturned. A little voice inside me says that Lois and her boss want nothing to do with me. But I have learned through many years of experience that it is the voice of my own insecurities. More probably, they find us too expensive and are uncomfortable saying so. Or they realize that my calls are not urgent and treat them as such. Or they are just busy. Still, three years is a long time. Whatever the reason, I have little enthusiasm for making the call. Another little voice inside me says that this is a waste of time, that nothing will ever come of calling these people. Once again, experience responds, cautioning me that one more call will cost me little, to which the first little voice says that a time comes to give up and refocus one’s energies elsewhere.

My deliberations were interrupted, and I put off deciding what to do.
This is a true story about a client I have been pursuing, except Lois’s name came up on my tickler file a couple of months ago, not last week. I did call and this time Lois called me back to invite me to pitch on some work. There was only one competitor and our chances of winning were good. Today she called to give us the go ahead.

I have many such stories after 30 years of business development. Over the years I have learned that an unreturned phone call means that someone did not return my call and little more. Others reinforce this belief. Christy Williams, a friend of mine, ran into a contact she had been trying to reach for months, leaving many messages. All her calls went unreturned. When she met the man at a conference, he greeted her enthusiastically saying that he had recently referred her to a prospective client. She thanked him and said, “Let’s stay in touch.” “What do you mean?” he responded, “We’ve been in touch.” He equated her unreturned phone calls with their being in touch.

A big part of rain making is persistence. Still, several times a week a name comes up on my tickler system of someone who has not responded to previous calls. And still, after all these years, the little voice inside me says to give up, that it is not worth the effort, that the person doesn’t like me and doesn’t want to talk with me. It is by learning to override that voice that I have become successful.

Actuaries and engineers aren’t known for their sales ability. They are seen as an introverted lot, more comfortable crunching numbers than with the kind of socializing that selling requires. Though there is limited truth to this stereotype, we have found that some actuaries and engineers quickly become effective business developers. This is true of some quite introverted and technical ones. Some outperform professionals one might expect to have greater interpersonal skill and so more of a sales bent, such as strategy consultants or executive recruiters. Some become rainmakers.

Professionals are smart people and run the risk of confusing understanding with mastery. Once they understand something, they want to move quickly to the next challenge. Though understanding may equal mastery in some areas, it’s not true of selling. Selling is a performing art, more like playing the piano. Understanding how a piano works is easy, but mastery requires practice. It requires going back to basics again and again. Engineering and actuarial sciences require a similar discipline. While there is room for creativity, rigorous attention to procedure is also essential if the actuary is to make sure that his numbers add up and the engineer that his bridge won’t fall down. They aren’t above doing routine and repetitive activities.

Selling requires meeting and a call discipline, which is also based on routine and repetitive effort. Some groups, which are perceived to be more dynamic than actuaries and engineers, are put off by such routines or feel compelled to vary and reinvent them. They require constant mental stimulation, if they are to remain engaged. Lacking that, they quickly abandoned their efforts. But the actuary and engineer keep at it, with a routine of calls and meetings, which eventually leads to a sale.

Let’s hear it for old fashioned hard work and those willing to do it to find a new client!